Biological and particularly fermentation processes have been used for centuries for instance in the art of beer brewing. Recently, such biological processes have attracted considerable interest for the production of protein both as feed supplements and ultimately for human consumption. It is known that one of the obstacles in using fermentation processes for the production of single cell protein for human consumption is the high content of nucleic acid of the single cell protein.
Various methods have been proposed in the art for the reduction of the nucleic acid content of the protein. Among those methods are treatment with alkali, treatment with acids, treatment with heat shock of the protein containing cells. Whereas certain details are known from these various methods for the reduction of the content of nucleic acids in single cell protein no integrated process has been disclosed or suggested by the prior art which would allow the production of Nucleic Acid Reduced Protein (NARP) in good yields while utilizing only a limited number of process steps.